by Annie Groves
Oh, no, here it comes, Lou thought grimly. She was going to get a private telling-off for the points she had lost them.
The other girls were filing out of the hut, anxious to make the most of their Saturday night off, Betty giving Lou a sympathetic look as she marched past her, saying out of the side of her mouth in a hissed whisper, ‘I’ll wait for you at the Naafi.
With the corporal’s steely gaze on her, Lou didn’t dare so much as nod in response.
The door banged closed after the last girl to leave, dust motes from the evening sun dancing in the disturbed air, which smelled of scent and excitement.
‘Congratulations on your results, Campion. Very well done indeed.’
‘Thank you.’ Lou didn’t dare relax and add the word ‘Corp', remaining standing stiffly to attention.
‘At ease.’
At ease–she wished she could be, Lou reflected as she did her best to obey the command given with a body that felt as tightly coiled as a steel spring inside, with limbs attached to it as stiff as her mother’s wooden dolly pegs.
‘A pass rate of ninety-eight per cent, which yours was,’ the corporal announced, ‘is considered by the officers here to denote the skill of both a trainee and their tutor.’
Her pass mark has been ninety-eighty per cent? Lou’s knees had gone all weak, her wooden dolly peg legs suddenly turned to jelly. Surely there must be some mistake? But of course the RAF did not make mistakes.
‘The CO feels that something which reflects so well on WAAF Halton should be rewarded,’ Corporal Carter continued. ‘As a result I have been informed that twenty good conduct points will be given to this Hut as a mark of recognition of the achievement.’
‘Twenty points?’ Lou croaked. ‘But that’s—’
‘This puts our Hut at the top of the league table,’ the corporal went on, ignoring her, ‘where I trust it will now remain. Dismissed, Campion, and jolly good show.’
‘Eva, no, I can explain,’ Con protested, expertly dodging the tin of Spam his enraged mistress hurled at his head, followed by a tin of peaches, both taken from the pile of tinned food on Con’s desk.
‘Those tins you’ve just been chucking at me will be dented now,’ he protested. ‘Cost me good money, they did, and I know plenty who would be grateful for them.’
It was unfortunate that Eva had caught him being kissed by little Jenny, the understudy, as a ‘thank you’ for the tinned stuff he’d just given her, and which she’d had to leave on his desk when Eva had burst in on them. But there was no call for her to carry on like she was doing, Con thought defensively, especially not after the way he’d been so generous to her. The trouble with Eva, though, was there was no satisfying her, in bed or out of it. Con grimaced to himself. It would suit him very nicely if Eva took the huff good and proper. And slung her hook, taking herself off to another theatre.
‘Like that harlot who is trying to steal you from me, you mean?’ Eva demanded.
‘You’ve got it all wrong,’ Con tried to defend himself. ‘All I was doing was having a word with her about her singing at the nightclub. She’s only a kid, Eva; she means nothing to me. How could she when I’ve got you?’ Con tried to soft-soap her.
Eva had been keen enough to encourage him to go ahead when he had told her that he’d been invited ‘by a business associate’ to help him set up a new private membership-only nightclub. Joe’s idea, since that was the best way for them to get round the strict antigaming laws, and at the same time to do as Ricky had suggested and have a bit more than a card game to tempt the American troops to gamble away their money.
‘Do you want to break my heart?’ Eva demanded, only partially mollified. ‘Can you not see that that harlot is trying to steal you from me? Well, she shall not. I shall kill her first with my father’s knife. I shall kill you both and then I shall kill myself.’
‘Eva, there’s no need for you to talk like that,’ Con tried to soothe her.
‘Hold me, then; kiss me and tell me that you love me and only me.’
Eva was holding out her arms to him, and the thought of her threat and her father’s knife was enough to have Con giving in to her.
She didn’t know what she’d have done without Wilhelm being here to keep Tommy occupied during the summer holidays, Emily admitted, as she washed the fresh lettuce Tommy had just brought up to the kitchen for her, showing her how neatly he had cut it, under Wilhelm careful eye, and telling her that he and Wilhelm had counted twenty-three slugs in the jar of beer they had put out to trap them in.
Emily had shuddered at the thought of the slugs–there were some things that, no matter how much she loved Tommy, did not have the interest or appeal for her that they did for him, and slugs were one of them. She’d have their lunch ready soon. Wilhelm had repaired an old wooden table he’d found in the shed and Tommy enjoyed having his lunch there with Wilhelm out in the summer sunshine. Emily didn’t join them; she didn’t consider that it was her place, or fitting. Wilhelm did more than enough for them already without him having to put up with her company as well. She might sit out on the back step after lunch, with it being so warm and sunny. She could leave the door open so that she could hear the wireless, and she could get on with her knitting. She was making Tommy a new pullover for when he went back to school, from wool she’d unwound from an old jumper of her father’s. Her father would have liked Wilhelm, Emily reckoned. A fierce blush burned her face. What on earth was she thinking now!
‘Why don’t you have your lunch here with us?’ Tommy questioned, after Emily had put down their plates and was preparing to go back to the house.
‘It is because your Mutter, she is the lady of the house and we here we are the men,’ Wilhelm explained to Tommy.
She really ought to explain to Wilhelm that Tommy wasn’t her son, Emily thought, but now with Tommy himself calling her ‘Mum’ of his own accord, and her never thinking to say something because it meant so much to her to have him do that, it made things a bit difficult.
‘I’m knitting you that pullover for when you back to school, remember,’ she told Tommy now, ‘and I don’t want those nasty slugs near my nice clean wool.’
She’d turned to walk back up the garden as she spoke, but the strong sunlight blinded her for a moment so that she didn’t see the wheelbarrow and stumbled against it.
Immediately Wilhelm was on his feet, taking hold of her as she fell.
It must be the shock of nearly falling that was making her feel so weak and dizzy, Emily told herself as she leaned gratefully against Wilhelm’s supporting arm, just as it also must be that same shock that was making her heart beat so rapidly. It could not and must not be the fact that Wilhelm was holding her so carefully and so comfortingly whilst he asked anxiously if she was all right.
Wilhelm smelled of earth and sunshine and fresh air. His concern for her underlined what a genuinely kind man he was.
‘I am so sorry. I should have moved the wheelbarrow. If you had been hurt, I should never have forgiven myself.’
‘No, it was my fault for not looking where I was going,’ Emily insisted.
‘You are sure you have not hurt yourself? You are able to walk?’
‘Yes. I’m all right.’
Wilhelm still hadn’t released her and although she knew she should move away from him, Emily felt strangely reluctant to do so.
‘You say that, but with your permission I shall walk back to the house with you, just to be sure.’
She could, Emily knew, have told Wilhelm that Tommy would walk back with her, but there was something about the way the warmth and protection of Wilhelm’s arm around her, and the concern in his eyes made her feel, which kept her silent, so that it was Wilhelm who guided her gently back towards the open back door whilst Tommy continued to enjoy his lunch.
‘You really needn’t have bothered,’ Emily told Wilhelm once they had reached the house. ‘It was my own silly fault for not looking where I was going, and it would have served me right if I had hurt myself
.’
‘I am glad you did not. It would not have been your fault.
‘If you want to wait I’ll put the kettle on and then you can take a tray of tea back down for you and Tommy,’ Emily suggested.
Wilhelm had been in the kitchen before so there was no reason for her feel like she was doing, all breathless and giddy, as though something important had happened.
As she bustled about the kitchen Emily took very great care not to look at Wilhelm or to behave as though there was anything out of the ordinary, but inside she knew that once she was on her own it wouldn’t be Tommy’s new pullover that occupied her thoughts but the lovely comforting warmth of Wilhelm’s arm around her, holding her as though she was fragile and precious and all those things that, as a girl, she had so longed to be.
‘Emily.’
The sound of Wilhelm’s voice so close to her ear as she stood in front of the cupboard about to lift the cups from it had Emily’s heart pounding.
‘I have wanted to say to you for a very long time how much I admire you and how beautiful I find you.’
Unable to stop herself, Emily turned round, her chest lifting with her gulped breath as she saw how close to her Wilhelm was standing.
‘Beautiful in here.’ Wilhelm told her, touching his own chest over his heart. ‘The true beauty that comes from true goodness inside. But now you are very beautiful outside as well.’
Her, beautiful? Emily was about to deny that she was any such thing when she saw how sad Wilhelm looked.
‘Such a beautiful and good woman will have many men who admire her and who want to offer her their hearts. She would never want the heart of a man such as me, a prisoner of war, who is not worthy of her. I should not speak but my heart demands that I do.’
‘Oh, Wilhelm, how could you ever think you aren’t worthy of any woman?’ Emily protested with heartfelt emotion. ‘You are the most worthy man I have ever met. A good man, a kind man.’
They looked at one another, both of them hesitant and uncertain, and then Wilhelm stepped forward purposefully and Emily’s heart threw itself valiantly across the chasm that separated her from the happiness she longed for, forcing her body to follow suit, so that she was stepping into Wilhelm’s arms and he was kissing her gently and respectfully.
The boiling kettle whistled, and, startled, they separated and looked self-conscious, whilst smiling happily at one another.
SEVENTEEN
‘Truthfully, Grace, I could hardly believe it, and nor could your dad. Both of us had to read the letter twice. Of course, your dad’s chest is swelled to twice its normal size, and I don’t think there’s a soul that works for the Salvage Corp that doesn’t know about Lou getting the George Cross. If your dad’s like this now, I don’t know what he’s going to be like after he’s seen King George giving Lou her medal at the investiture.’
‘Well, you’ve got to admit that it is exciting, Mum,’ Grace laughed. ‘And Lou, of all people.’
‘We said, didn’t we, when she came home how much being in the WAAF had done to help her grow up? Oh, and I’ve had a letter from your auntie Francine saying that we’re not to worry about hotel rooms or anything because that’s going to be her treat. You and Seb will be able to come, won’t you?’
‘We wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ Grace assured her mother as they stood together in Jean’s kitchen, drinking the tea she had just poured.
‘Sasha will be going, of course, but what about Bobby? I know that Lou wasn’t keen on him.’
‘Lou said in her letter that she’s got tickets for all of us, including Bobby, but that she doesn’t know if she’ll be allowed to have much time with us. The George Cross isn’t a purely military award, of course, but she’ll be in uniform and I dare say there’ll be things she’ll have to do, although she did say that she’ll be able to stay at the Savoy with us.
‘I don’t know what I’m going to wear, mind, although again your auntie Francine has said not to worry. It’s not until late October, and I’ve been thinking that I could wear the outfit I had for your wedding. I was going to save it for … well, it seems silly not to wear it.’
Grace knew perfectly well what her mother had been about to say before she had stopped herself: she had been intending to save the lovely outfit her sister Francine had brought home for her from Cairo for Katie and Luke’s wedding. But now, of course, Katie and Luke weren’t going to be married, and Grace knew how very disappointed and sad that had made her mother.
However, since 25 October was the date when Lou was to be presented with her medal by the King at the investiture ceremony in London, it did make sense for her mother to wear the outfit. Grace had already decided that she was going to wear her own going away suit for the occasion.
Grace had been as thrilled as Jean when she’d learned about Lou’s George Cross, and Seb had been the first to insist that they must make every effort they could to be at the investiture. He couldn’t have been more proud of Lou if she had been his own sister, but then of course they were both in the same service, although very different parts of it.
‘I’d have liked to have taken Bella with us,’ Jean continued. ‘It’s such a shame that Vi treats her the way she does, and Bella with all the responsibility for that nursery on her shoulders …
‘Lou put in her letter that the RAF is making arrangements for Luke to get to know.’ A shadow crossed Jean’s face, and Grace knew why. It wasn’t just Luke’s broken engagement that caused her mother concern.
Everyone knew how vitally important it was that the British troops stopped Rommel from overrunning the Middle East, taking control of the Suez Canal and the vital supply of oil. The Afrika Korps Radio had already warned the ladies of Cairo to ‘make ready for us tonight’ and naturally, with Luke fighting with the British Eighth Army and the previous month’s fall of Tobruk, Jean was concerned for her son’s safety.
Later, after she had seen Grace off on the train back to Whitchurch, Jean thought over her one plan for their trip to London that she had not revealed to her daughter. It wasn’t that she would be meddling or anything, she assured herself. She had liked Katie for herself, after all, and it was only natural that if she was going to be in London she should try to see her ex-billetee. The trouble was that her ex-billetee was also Luke’s ex-fiancée, and Sam would not approve of Jean making contact with her for that reason. But Jean wanted to see Katie; she missed her and she wanted to reassure herself that Katie was all right. It wasn’t as though she was actually going to lie to Sam; she would never do that. No, it was simply that she wasn’t actually going to tell him that she had written to Katie’s parents telling them what was happening, and enclosing a letter for Katie, suggesting that if Katie was willing, they could meet at the Savoy for a cup of tea. There was no harm in that, was there? No, there wasn’t. And she wouldn’t even mention Luke–well, at least not unless Katie mentioned him first and wanted to talk about him and perhaps have news of him.
It had been such a relief when he had written to them after the fall of Tobruk to reassure them that he was safe and well. Not, of course, that he’d been able to write anything specific, not with the censorship rules that forbade people refering to anything that might help the enemy if it should fall into their hands. Families soon learned to put two and two together, though, listening to the news on the wireless, reading the papers and knowing where those members of their family were serving abroad.
Luke was still in the desert, but now the newspapers were full of the progress the British Eighth Army was making under its newly appointed generals–Alexander and Montgomery–against Rommel, saying how Rommel’s tanks had become embedded in the sand.
Jean couldn’t bear to think of her Luke having to face those tanks. Every night she prayed for all those she loved but she always said an extra special prayer that Luke would return home unharmed.
Sam was worrying too, she knew, even though he didn’t say so. The anxious frown with which he read the evening paper told its own story. Not
even his allotment could keep him from coming in in time to sit down with her to the nine o’clock news.
Jean couldn’t imagine what being in the desert must be like. All that sand. The most sand she had ever seen had been at Southport when the tide was out, but according to Francine the sand in the desert wasn’t flat like it was in Southport. Instead it formed hills and valleys, which could change overnight with the wind, burying whole villages, never mind brave English soldiers whose mothers were worrying themselves sick about them.
‘I wish we didn’t have to go to London, Bobby.’
‘Aww, come on, Sash, don’t be like that. You’ll enjoy it.’ When Sasha hunched a shoulder and turned away from him on the bench in Wavertree Park, where they’d been sitting together in the warm evening sunshine, Bobby reached for her hand and, holding it tightly, added, ‘And don’t forget that we’ll be there in London together, and won’t that be something? And seeing King George, and all.’
Sasha managed a small smile. ‘Well, if you want to go, Bobby, but I don’t want Lou treating you like she normally does, as if you and me aren’t together.’
‘I don’t reckon she’ll do that. I know me and your Lou haven’t always seen eye to eye, and that she took against me when you and I first got together, but that’s all in the past now.’
‘All everyone seems to be able to talk about at home these days is Lou and her medal,’ Sasha complained. ‘Even Dad seems to have forgotten how angry he was when he found out that Lou had gone behind his and Mum’s back and joined up.’
